Acoustic string instruments, such as guitars, conventionally have a hollow body including a sound hole, a neck, and strings that are stretched between the bridge on the body and a headstock on a neck, and over or near the sound hole. If expertly made from high-quality materials, guitars having this construction can have a rich, mellow sound, with volume evenly distributed across the frequency range of the strings. However, lower-cost instruments typically do not have high-quality materials and/or are not expertly made, and are thus affordable to the majority of buyers, such as most amateurs. These lower-cost instruments often have a weak sound that favors one end of the frequency spectrum (bass or treble) at the expense of the other. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved acoustic string instrument.